March 19, 2024

Pamela Fiori on ‘The Best Travel Magazine That Ever Was’

In a way it chose me. I was introduced to Charles Miers, publisher of Rizzoli New York, and we started talking about my doing a memoir. When he found out that I had worked at Holiday, which unbeknown to me, he was fascinated by, he asked if I’d be interested in doing something on the history of it. I only worked there for a few years, but I knew a fair amount about it. It’s the magazine that gave me my wings. I was immediately interested.

Some. There were no archives to speak of. The company — Curtis Publishing — had folded. I went to eBay and I started to buy up as many issues as I could. There was a lot there. Not everything, but enough to give me a good sense of why the magazine was so special. Before it, there had been nothing like it.

Holiday started just after World War II, when a lot of soldiers were coming back with a great sense of optimism. But they also wanted to be home, and home meant doing a lot of things under the G.I. Bill — getting an education, buying cars, buying houses.

What Curtis Publishing did was take a risk and bet that eventually these people would become a little restless and curious about what was out there and, with their new cars, would be able to take trips.

The first few issues were edited by a fellow who was pretty mundane in his view of the world and they were not very interesting graphically. Curtis wisely found another man who was much more worldly — Ted Patrick — and he edited the magazine until the early 1960s. His vision was that it not only be a travel magazine, but a magazine about places, people, culture, popular culture and much more.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/19/travel/pamela-fiori-travel-magazine.html?emc=rss&partner=rss

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